Fishing Reports - Most Recent

I fished stripers today with Don and Mike from the Santa Rosa area. The weather was perfect (not overly hot) and we hardly saw any other boats on the river. We covered about 20 miles of river by the end of the day. We started off with some good action, but then fishing was tough from about 11am to 2pm. The bite improved in the afternoon, though. Don finished the day with at least five fish, the largest about 3 pounds. Mike landed a couple of larger schoolies too.

Visibility is improving and the weedbeds are starting to come in. The river looks a lot better than it did just 10 days ago. I anticipate more fish and more big fish once the weedbeds become established and the forage fish arrive in good numbers.

After the busy 4th of July weekend, the weather has cooled off a bit and everything is fishing pretty good in the Intermountain area, especially the hex hatch on Fall. We have some prime available dates left in July before we kick off our steelhead season in August on the Klamath. We still have a few spots open for Speycamp, please contact me with any questions.

Scott Saiki's client for Tuesday, June 28th just had to cancel his trip. Scott is now available to fish the Fall River, Lower Sac, or pretty much any other area fishery. The Fall River is fishing very well right now, with the hex hatch being the big draw. Get in touch if you would like to jump on this prime date!

I did my first-ever striper/hex combo trip yesterday. We fished the Lower Sac for stripers until 2pm and then headed up to Fall River for the hex hatch. We had pretty good striper fishing, albeit for small fish, in the morning and then the hex hatch was about as good as it gets. My clients Frank and Doug landed close to ten big fish on hex dries last night. Pretty amazing, especially considering the windy conditions. All of the hex fish were 16-19" and were great fighters.

The fishing was challenging during the day today. We landed just a couple fish, but one of them was Doug's best Fall River fish ever, a 21" rainbow.

The hex hatch was really good again tonight. The wind totally changed from last night and there were way more bugs, so our flies were a bit outnumbered. We landed four or five nice fish. Frank and Doug have done the hex hatch many times over the years and they thought this year was the best they've ever seen.

Dax and Leslie have opened up some dates in early July - come up and experience the hex hatch.

I spent a half-day this morning on the Sac with longtime clients Frank & Doug from the Sacramento area. It was their first time fishing for stripers and they had a blast. We didn't get any big boys today, but we hooked about a dozen schoolies in the 10-16" size range. The water clarity isn't the best right now - it's coming out of Keswick pretty green. That makes it hard to sight-fish for larger fish and see when other fish are chasing the flies. We saw some pretty nice largemouth and smallmouth bass in a couple of sloughs, but they were surrounded by thousands of baitfish and didn't seem to be hungry!

The weather has been very sporadic in June here in Nor Cal. Mt. Shasta got a beautiful blanket of fresh snow a few nights ago. It makes for beautiful sunsets on Fall River as you await the hex hatch. Some of the windy and cooler nights this past week kept the hatch from happening, but overall its been a superb hex season despite the unseasonal weather. The hatch is happening both above and below the confluence, which makes for a nice displacement of pressure. Don't drop right below somebody when there is two hundred yards of open water above them. Llights! If you don't have proper lights on your boat, at least have headlamps and flashlights. Better yet, Shasta Angler in Fall River has the proper lights for you, the game warden and other anglers don't care if your crappy rental boat isn't properly equipped with lights...its the operator's responsibility.

Hat Creek has been decent in the mornings and evenings, kinda tough during the day. The warmer weather will help hatches. The Mac has been the typical McCloud. At times you wonder if there are any fish or insects in the place, then all of a sudden it turns on and you are hooking fish all over the place. Afternoons have been better recently for me.

I only have a few more days available for trout season. Fishing should be great these next few weeks.

Fished this past week all around NorCal working on a project with GoPro and Cal Trout. Over the course of the week, we fished the upper Sac, Hat Creek, the McCloud river, Klamath river and Fall River. The weather was cold and rainy, but the fishing still managed to be great. Fished with nymphs, streamers and dries, and caught fish with each set up. I even managed to swing up a bass. It was an awesome week, and with the weather starting to warm up again, the hatches should really start to pick up again.

On Fall River the past few days, the Hex hatch is really going off. This is my favorite hatch, not just because of the aggressive takes, but also because watching the sun set over Mt. Shasta is never the same experience twice.

The weather has been very unpredictable this spring, but the fishing has remained consistent and today was no exception! We had rain yesterday and this morning, but despite the weather - the fish were super grabby for Bill and Ken. We never saw another boat all day and fishing was simply epic. They had so many double hook-ups, that it seemed odd if one was hooked-up without the other. Caddis patterns and mayflies nymphs were the ticket today.

I spent the afternoon scouting for stripers with fellow guide Sam Robinett. I didn't have high expectations due to the high winds and cool temperatures. Stripers generally like it hot. We worked some of my favorite spots for about an hour and a half and then I hooked a very nice fish. I saw it chase the fly right at the end of the retrieve, so I stopped retrieving and the fish gobbled the fly right next to the boat! We had a lot of action in the next two hours on schoolies from 10 to 16 inches. We finished off the day in a great carp spot and Sam landed a beauty!

Pretty good action for non-ideal conditions. I'll be striper fishing a lot from here on out through the end of September. Come on up and see what it's all about!

I fished Steve and grandson Chris today on Battle Creek. We got off to an early start and the river was in much better shape than 2 weeks ago when it was too high. I was sweating bullets by 2pm though as we had covered a lot of water without many strikes. Right before our first hike-out opportunity the fish went on the grab. We decided to fish a little more and my guys got to experience what Battle Creek is known for - tons of grabs on dry flies. We landed fish up to ten inches and rose a few larger ones on a variety of giant dry flies. The best flies were a pink hopper and a Turck's tarantula, size 8-10. We saw some golden stones in the air, tons of hoppers in the upper part of the canyon, and lots of dragons and damsels. We also spotted 4 or 5 spring-run chinook - really cool to see these huge wild fish hanging out in crystal clear cold water all summer.

I fished the Lower Sac this morning with Steve and grandson Chris. We floated Anderson to Balls which was nice and peaceful, but the cool weather seemed to throw the fishing off a bit. We landed a fish fish, including two nice fat 16" rainbows. By 1pm the wind came up made the fishing really difficult. It was a great two days for first-time angler Chris, though. He landed six rainbows on dry flies on Battle Creek yesterday and then caught a few fish today on the Lower Sac.

We finished up our day in Red Bluff trying for shad but they were nowhere to be found. Calm sunny weather should make for improved shad fishing.

Leslie and I had a day off today and spent it fishing, of course. Not much dry fly happening where we were today, but the streamer grab was excellent. We also did very well on the dirty nymphs. Fishing was best between 11 and 2 today.

I expect another epic hex hatch tonight, it has he best early season hex hatch I've seen in my 14 years on Fall River. It's even been happening with the cooler evenings that we've been having.

The hex hatch has been going off! My clients Dean and Clayton from Washington landed 4 very large fish last night on their first ever hex hatch. Pressure is very low. I've been out the last 10 nights, and the hatch happened on 8 of them, so it's pretty consistent. During the day the Fall has been kinda moody. There has been some great hatches on some days, nothing on others. Sinking lines and nymphing are catching some fish when there are no bugs on top. Pressure is extremely high on the upper river, mellow on the lower river. If you are patient, you can headhunt for very large rising fish from 10 until about 2 and search for the moments. My client Tom Donnely hooked and finally lost a truly gigantic fish, who ran him through his full spool of backing. The battle did not end with the fish in the net, but it was an amazing fish and battle.

Hat Creek was good last week, but slowed down the last few days. Powerhouse Riffle is crowded, shallow, and fishing good in the mornings for tricos and in the evenings for caddis.

The McCloud has been going off on some days, kinda tough on others. The best fishing is In the evenings and whenever the fish are looking up for stones and mayflies. Ask us about our camping options for the Mac.

I had a great weekend hosting Doug and Jeff from Sacramento in the pursuit of wild trout on some of my favorite rivers in Northern California. With the warm weather, the really big fish eluded us, but the bug activity provided us with tons of action. We fished the Upper and Lower sections of the McCloud RIver, Stretches #3 and #4 on the PIt RIver, and Hat Creek. Fishing on the McCloud and Hat Creek proved to be a ton of fun. We caught the majority of our fish on dries as the salmonfly hatch was in full force and there were small golden stone fly hatches everywhere. Our day on the Pit was even more challenging than usual. Higher than normal flows forced us into some tight spots. We managed to pick up a few nice fish though. If you love all the challenges that fly fishing can offer an angler, weekends like these are a blast.

Katie and I spent the day on the Henry's Fork with Alex Kohn from Henry's Fork Anglers. We floated Ora to Chester, a lower stretch that I had never done before. There are a ton of floats you can do on the Henry's Fork and they are all different. I really liked the float we did today. The river was mostly shallow with great riffles and structure. The scenery, while not very vertical, was great. At the bottom of the float we could view the Grand Teton mountains from the river. That was cool because we are headed there for a family vacation tomorrow.

Katie and I were really impressed with the fishing, even though our guide Alex said the river was fishing merely "OK". The Henry's Fork rainbows and browns are hard fighters. We hooked quite a few fish and landed fish up to 20". We fished a dry-dropper rig almost all day, using a chubby chernobyl as the dry and various beadhead nymphs underneath. Most of our biggest fish ate the dry. I guess we're right between the giant stonefly and golden stone hatches right now. Katie's big fish of the day, a 20" brown, chowed her big dry fly on a little seam near the bank.

I fished our private section of North Battle Creek today with some clients from my home town of Gridley. I guess I'm used to drought conditions, because I was really surprised that the creek was flowing pretty high today! Flows spiked up a little with the hot weather so there must still be some snowmelt up in the high country above McCumber Reservoir. We were able to fish the wider parts of the creek, but the cascades were impassable so we weren't able to fish as much water as usual. We caught some fish on dries and nymphs under dry flies. Fishing should really pick up in a couple weeks when the flows drop down to normal summer levels.

I just returned from a great trip to the East Cape of Baja California with my buddy Mark Tompkins. We fished with Jeff deBrown of The Reel Baja. Jeff has lived on the East Cape full-time for 17 years and is an expert on the fly fishing opportunities in the area. He set us up with accommodations at Rancho Leonero, a comfortable fishing resort with great food and a great location right on the beach. We dealt the best we could with some challenging conditions. The first day we went boat fishing because the sky was overcast, which makes for poor visibility. We landed several species that day, including skipjack, jack crevalle, and a small roosterfish. We also hooked and lost a dorado. The 2nd day we spent on the beach. The swells were a little big and we only had one shot at a fish that day. Fortunately Mark nailed it and hooked and landed a 45 pound roosterfish from the beach! He almost got spooled, but managed to wrestle the fish back in. That is a fish of a lifetime from the beach. Our 3rd day we boat fished again in hopes of casting to some larger roosters that were working bait offshore. We didn't connect with the big fish, but I managed to land my first roosterfish ever, about 10 pounds.

The day of beach fishing was the most fun, partially because we used quads to drive around and look for fish. You can travel countless miles of beach from the resort on a quad or side-by-side. When the light is good there is always a chance to find roosterfish crashing bait near the beach. It's a really fun game to play, especially if you enjoy sight fishing. It's also very different than wading the flats and other saltwater fishing scenarios. The range of the roosterfish is large, but the East Cape of Baja is the only place in the world where you can catch them on flies from the beach. I look forward to my next trip down there!

The Lower Sac fished well for clients Russ & Brad today. We floated Bonnyview to Balls Ferry and only saw one other drift boat all day. The fish were on the grab throughout the day. We landed a lot of nice 16" rainbows. Nothing bigger today, but great numbers of fish hooked. There was quite a bit of bug activity, including pink alberts (orange PMDs) and caddisflies. No risers today.

There are some days when the stars align and that allows for a simply amazing experience. I had the great pleasure of guiding my long time client Pat, and her very good friend Kate the past two days. The weather was a bit unsettled, but the fishing was solid. Pat and Kate worked very hard, but were definately rewarded for their efforts! They landed so many fish in the 18-20 inch range that we lost count. Rubberlegs and pmd nymphs seemed to be the most productive. Flows have been very consistent the past few weeks, but are schedued to increase to 7,500 cfs on June 1st.

Sign up for our email newsletter and be entered to win a full-day trip for two.
Select from a fully guided trip on the Lower Sac or Trinity River or a day at Eagle Canyon Trophy Trout Lakes!
A $435 value!